
Emily Kanstroom Musgrave
(she/her/hers)
Member / Co-chair, Appellate Practice Group
+1.617.348.4407
Emily is an experienced trial lawyer and appellate advocate focusing on complex commercial litigation, including securities litigation, contract disputes, and government investigations, as well as public finance and bankruptcy-related litigation. As Co-Chair of the firm’s Appellate Practice Group, she leads clients through the appellate process, designing a successful appellate strategy, drafting briefs, and handling oral argument. She also assists clients with amicus curiae submissions, including to the U.S. Supreme Court. Emily represents clients in all stages of litigation, from pre-litigation counseling and investigation, through discovery, dispositive motion practice, trial, and appeal.
Emily has significant experience representing leading life sciences, pharmaceutical, and retail companies, and their officers and directors, in securities litigation cases, including class actions, derivative actions, and SEC investigative and enforcement proceedings.
Working closely with public finance colleagues, Emily also provides strategic advice to bond trustees and bondholders to protect their rights and to maximize recovery on their holdings in the face of complex litigation in state and federal courts, both at the trial and appellate levels.
Emily previously served as a Special Assistant District Attorney in Middlesex County, where she argued motions to suppress and took cases to both jury and jury-waived trial.
She maintains a robust pro bono practice focused particularly on providing legal assistance to asylum seekers and survivors of domestic violence. She recently worked with a team that filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts against U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) alleging that USCIS wrongfully denied plaintiffs Special Immigrant Juvenile status, which allows certain children who have been abused, neglected or abandoned to seek lawful permanent residence in the United States.
Before joining the firm, Emily served as a law clerk for the Honorable Margot Botsford of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. She also served as a law clerk for the Honorable Leo T. Sorokin, then a Magistrate Judge, of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
During law school, she was the managing editor of the International and Comparative Law Review. She also won the Wendell F. Grimes Moot Court Competition and was a member of the National Mock Trial team.
Experience
Appellate
- Provided strategic guidance, research and drafting for an appellate brief on behalf of a Fortune 500 biotechnology company, in an ongoing employment discrimination case brought by a former employee. The case is currently pending in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
- Briefed, argued, and won before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court a case of statutory first impression and constitutional dimensional concerning the interpretation of G. L. c. 123, § 12, which raised the question how long a patient in psychiatric distress may be cared for in an emergency department while waiting for a bed in an appropriate in-patient psychiatric facility.
- Provided strategic guidance, research and drafting for the Respondent’s Brief on behalf of a nationwide retailer before a California Court of Appeal, in a wrongful termination claim filed by a former employee. After submission of the Brief, the appeal was dismissed at the appellant’s request.
- Co-authored and supervised a team in researching and drafting an amicus brief submitted to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on behalf of the National Homelessness Law Center, in a case concerning the rights of people experiencing homelessness.
- Briefed and argued an appeal before the Massachusetts Appeals Court on behalf of a non-profit conservation organization. The lawsuit centered on a conservation restriction that was placed on waterfront property in Duxbury, MA
- Worked with a team to file an amicus brief in the case of County of Maui, Hawaii vs. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, (United States Supreme Court Case No. 18-260), a critical case concerning whether the federal Clean Water Act regulates discharges of pollutants into groundwater that then flows into navigable waters.
- Briefed and argued before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court a case presenting the novel legal question whether a veteran would be considered indigent (and so entitled to a waiver or reduction of court fees and other costs) under the Indigent Court Costs Law, G. L. c. 261, §§ 27A-27G.
Securities and Complex Commercial Litigation
- Secured a motion to dismiss with prejudice on behalf of DBV Technologies in a class action filed in the US District court for New Jersey, alleging the company made false or misleading statements and failed to disclose sufficient manufacturing data on their key therapeutic treatment.
- Represented Advanced Auto Parts in a securities class action in the District of Delaware and successfully obtained dismissal of a related derivative action against its board of directors and certain senior executives.
- Successfully represented bondholders who owned a majority stake of bonds used to finance a continuing care retirement community, in a dispute with the debtor and Unsecured Creditors Committee connected to the property and its bankruptcy filing.
- Successfully opposed a motion for preliminary injunction in a case alleging trade secret misappropriation under federal and state law.
- Achieved a decisive arbitration victory on behalf of a supplier in a complex contractual dispute with an automobile manufacturer, resulting in an award of over $10M, plus attorneys’ fees and expert costs.
- Represented pharmaceutical company defendant in the Nexium antitrust MDL litigation, the first alleged “pay-for-delay” case to go to trial since the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in FTC v. Actavis, resulting in a favorable settlement for Emily’s client.
- Part of team that secured no charge for government official in wide-ranging public corruption investigation.
- Represented Taiwanese creditor in complex civil RICO case in California federal court involving claims against 34 foreign and domestic defendants. The firm achieved a successful settlement of the case at the commencement of trial.
viewpoints
Minimizing Stockholder Litigation Risks
February 18, 2022 | Blog
News & Press
Twenty-Eight Mintz Attorneys Named To Boston Magazine’s Top Lawyers List
November 22, 2022
Mintz Wins Second Circuit Victory for BTA Bank in Long-Running Securities Fraud Case
January 26, 2022
How I Made Partner: Mintz Levin's Emily Musgrave
January 28, 2020
Water Law Doesn't Cover Cape Cod Pollution Via Groundwater
November 27, 2019
The Mintz team representing the Wychmere Beach Club includes Mintz Member and Chair of the firm's Environmental Law Practice Jeffrey R. Porter, and Co-Chairs of the firm's Appellate Practice Andrew N. Nathanson (Special Counsel) and Emily Kanstroom Musgrave (Member).
Mintz Promotes Eleven Attorneys to Member
May 10, 2019
Eighty-Four Mintz Attorneys Named 2016 Massachusetts Super Lawyers and Rising Stars
October 18, 2016
Events & Speaking
Recognition & Awards
- Benchmark Litigation: 40 & Under Hot List (2021 - 2022)
- Boston Magazine Top Lawyers – Appellate (2021 - 2022)
- Selected Participant, Women’s Bar Association 2020 Women’s Leadership Initiative
- Massachusetts Super Lawyers: Rising Star – Business Litigation (2016 - 2020)
- Lawdragon: "500 Leading Litigators in America" (2022)
- Order of the Coif
- Phi Beta Kappa
- Boston College Law School Richard G. Huber Award for scholarship and leadership in extra and co-curricular activities
Involvement
- Massachusetts Chair, Council of Appellate Lawyers, American Bar Association
- Member, Women’s Bar Association
- Selected participant, Women’s Bar Association’s 2020 Women’s Leadership Initiative
- Member, Boston Bar Association
- Member, Rhode Island Bar Association
- Advisory Board, Sitters For Scholars
- Guest Lecturer on Legal Practice, Boston College Law School
